Hi all,

This past weekend we had some wonderful weather and I finally got around to installing a pair of the DJ Auto E-code headlights on an '88 245 that had truly piss-yellow plastic lenses. I've always avoided these DJ Auto headlights (based mostly on the recommendations of others to hold out for the genuine Ciebie units), but the prices have dropped so much on them lately (400-350-300-250-now down to about 200) that I couldn't resist. After reading all I could find about the process using the search feature to look through old posts, here are a few observations I'd like to add. Hopefully it'll help someone in the future.

1) The quality on them is indeed fairly poor. The plastic molding isn't great. You need to check to make sure they're properly assembled.

2) The adjusters are of a poor/cheap design. Be prepared to take the whole assembly apart to fiddle with the adjusters. They'll never be as nice as the genuine articles, but it's worth taking the time to fiddle with them and get them "as good as possible." I also used a little 3 in 1 oil on them to try to get them to turn more easily. Still, you'd be lucky to get a set you can adjust with your fingers. A wrench (12mm) is needed to adjust 3 out of the 4 on my two headlamps.

3) The plastic housing is much bigger than the factory setup. Be prepared to slightly reroute some A/C plumbing and the hood release cable. Not a big deal, just don't try to shove them in without moving things around and expect them to fit.

5) The turn signal assembly snaps in place (DJ Auto) rather than screws to the headlight assembly (factory Volvo). This made me a little nervous, seeing as how 80mph put a fair amount of wind pressure on these things. I put a little epoxy over the joints for peace of mind.

4) The parking light and turn signal wiring is reversed. Swap them top to bottom in the harness that comes with the new lamps to keep the factory functionality. The wire colors are accurate from the DJ Autos to the factory harness, so just make sure green goes to green and white goes to white.

5) The DJ Autos are wired for daytime running lights (the brown wire in the middle of the 3 wire harness). My '88 was not factory wired for DRL.

6) The ground wire for the parking/turn signals that comes with the DJ Auto lamps is much too short. Cut off the factory ground wire and splice the new one into it. This is actually much easier than running the new ground wires to the fenders, especially on the passengers side where access to the factory ground point is blocked by the washer fluid reservoir.

7) Ken C has had problems with the mounting studs pulling out. I've got the nuts on there finger tight, plus about 45 degrees with a wrench. I also put washers on both the inner and outer sides of where the studs pass through the body. I feel like I'll have to keep an eye on them for a while--right now I'm more worried about the nuts vibrating off of the studs, rather than the studs pulling out of the housing. I would've used some loctite on them, but I'm also worried about having to take them out and apart to fix the adjusters again! This is an area I plan to revisit every weekend for the next month or two, to see how things go.

8) There's no sense doing this modification without also rewiring your headlights to run off of two relays using 12 gauge wiring straight from the battery. See Dan Sterns site for details there.

9) There's no sense trying to do any of this without taking a minute or two to remove the grill and battery.

10) Even if the quality of the parts is not impressive, the improvement in lighting most definitely is!

Happy motoring everyone.

Best,
Afton

'68 122, '87 '88 & '92 240's, all stick shift station wagons